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Puzzle Agent 2 is the sequel to a game I never really played, yet I heard fondly of. I was put in charge of reviewing PA 2 for a issue with the reviewer. Puzzle Agent 2 has a lot going for it, an amazing developer, Graham Annable’s artwork, and the humor of Telltale. Though the game does have bad animations and some other minor annoyances with the gameplay. The nausea I get from the game stems from the graphics.

You play as agent Tethers, a special agent who has a knack for puzzles. He returns to Scoggins, Minnesota, because he was haunted by nightmares of an astronaut. The games plot thickens very quickly, there is conspiracy, disappearances and new characters, and the fantastic plot – that Telltale did a great job of tying together with puzzles.

I love the graphics when the game is moving slowly, but when it speeds up I feel dizzy, yet this only happens rarely. The game can look beautiful at times though; unlike the first game Puzzle Agent 2 has 3d effects. Those effects make Annable’s art all the sweeter. The game does suffer from blocky animations which can range from reasonable to unnecessary. In one scene Agent Tethers is chasing someone, and while you see the background and foreground moving fast, you see two blocky indviduals with no flow, which for that half a minute was the most petrifying experiences I have had with animation ever.

The gameplay is fun, especially when you have conversations and play the puzzles. The puzzles can range from enjoyable to mind wrenching. I almost had an attack trying to find out how to solve one puzzle than moving on to the next puzzle which took me one second. There is no “starts easy, ends difficult” type stuff in this game, only variations of easy to difficult puzzles which are scattered and have no clue if they have something to with anything, but that is part of the fun as well.

Puzzle Agent 2 is a somewhat flawed but satisfying tale from Telltale, and should be praised for its storytelling and puzzles, but not for its animations.

First, along with the lucrative Halo 4, the announcement, Microsoft announced a Halo: Anniversary Edition. This will basically be a revamped installment of the classic first game, Halo: Combat Evolved. Expect to see that in stores along with Rayman Origins, a revival of our favorite limbless hero, back from a six-year hiatus back in its re-imagined 2-D roots. This will support co-op, bring back long-forgotten character favorites, and show off the copter-cranium hero we all fell in love with on the PS One.

However, don’t disregard our other revived favorites, though not exactly in the same sense as the above example. For one, returning tech-crazy Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and geek-friendly MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic return as indirect sequels to games that haven’t been thought of for a good few years. Another one like this is Battlefield 3, which has been the returning heir to a game six years ago, Battlefield 2, which launched the popular spin-offs and has finally come full circle back to the straight-Battlefield road equipped with its own Frostbite 2 engine setting the roadwork for greatness. People are going to be happy to see all of these. Also, definitely DO NOT forget Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, as it is another in the prestigious line of Zelda console titles that usually take a while to come out (I mean, Twilight Princess was well worth the wait, wasn’t it?), and it will use the motion sensing tech of the Wii to its full potential.

Finally, there are games that we can’t wait to see that are brushing themselves off from a good sleep, presumably in a cocoon, evolving into the games they are going to be when released. This includes that Zelda title and (my favorite) Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Skyrim is looking toi be possibly the single-best free roam RPG to date once released, complete with mountainous environment, 16 miles of land to explore, all hand-made dungeons, and (kudos to Bethesda for evading it for so long in a Fantasy title) dragons! I can still remember discovering Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind on a store shelf years ago, and still occasionally play Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, so this is going to be MINE once it comes out on November 11, 2011 (11/11/11, for those not keeping count).

All in all, E3 has definitely given us enough to chew on for a while, and these revamps to classics and heirs of their title name are at the forefront with the new.

This year, Microsoft came out of the gates with a load of awesome exclusives, a bunch of great title announcements, and a Microsoft classic E3 all around.

If you watched it, you will most likely note how motion-centric both Microsoft and Sony were, and truth be told, Sony did do really well showing off their Move innovations, but now that Kinect seemed like the underdog, you can’t count it out.

First of all, big reveals helped the Microsoft train chug along. One particularly brief reveal of Halo 4 got people excited, along with those of Modern Warfare 3 and a live broadcasting capability that Microsoft is trying to make the Xbox compatible with. Also, Kinect capability was confirmed for Mass Effect 3, but is probably only intended for speech choices… Other notable releases for Kinect are Kinect Star Wars, which will try to combine Kinect motion with a sword (and hopefully succeed where others failed), Kinect Disney Adventures (for whom, I do not really know), and a Sesame Street title by Double-Fine (who, among the inches of digital blood and gore, managed to charm many SOMEHOW).

All in all, they did well introducing many fan-favorite titles, and they surprised us with a couple of diamonds like Battlefield 3, zombie-masher Dead Island, and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (I had a momentary stroke when I saw the game play, self-proclaimed geek that I am). They hit, though not as hard as some would have liked. Compared to last year, it wasn’t much, but with the largest player population, it is still a crowd-pleaser. Here’s hoping for an awesome E3 2012!

As usual, Nintendo upped the ante at their E3 press conference this year. While it’s debatable on how well they really did, it’s fair to say they’ll likely have the biggest buzz from this years E3 (though Sony come close with the newly named Playstation Vita). View full article »

At The Mashed Potatoes, rather than doing a full-on liveblog or a bunch of news articles on the press conferences at E3, instead we cover them through an after-the-fact Wrap-Up. Here is the Wrap-Up of Sony’s E3 conference.

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is a game where a good amount of people will hate it and a good amount of people will like it. I am a guy who likes it, it is not just a Gears Of War fantasy re-hash , it is something much more rich and detailed than most Gears of War clones. Sadly, it does have various problems like stiff animations and incredibly smart AI. While you may think AI should be smart, they can still be smart to a point where they swarm you from all directions and kill you within a few seconds. View full article »